


all this trouble's aftermath

by Companionable



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Discussion of character death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post Episode 44
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6254872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Companionable/pseuds/Companionable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A second harrowing battle against a Beholder isn't enough to break Vox Machina apart, but it just might be enough to get them talking to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all this trouble's aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> first critrole fic posted to ao3, because this awful show has fucking consumed me and i can think of nothing else anymore. credit to [hannah](http://likebrothers.tumblr.com) for watching episode 44 with me and yelling about needing this fic, and then for also yelling _about_ this fic when i linked her the doc. a true friend. shoutie also to [@phaselocks](http://twitter.com/phaselocks) and to [@jettiebettie](http://twitter.com/jettiebettie/) for screaming with me on twitter about these fantastic idiots
> 
> find me on tumblr [here](http://tinytinychopper.tumblr.com) and on twitter over [here](http://twitter.com/tayttimus)!

She looks so exhausted, as she must after going through such an ordeal. It breaks Percy’s heart to see Grog carrying Vex again, as he did when they descended the ziggurat, but with infinitely more care and tenderness now than before. Kima whispers to Kashaw and Zahra as they pass through the tree Keyleth touches, and Keyleth hovers near to Vax with a frown. Percy has not left Grog’s side as he delivers Vex through the Sun Tree and into Whitestone, through the town and up to the castle, where Cassandra sees his face -- their faces -- and visibly starts to count heads.

“Cassandra. The guest quarters, if you don’t mind?” Percy manages to say, as she advances toward him with arms out. She cups his face, smoothing her thumbs along the lines of his eyes, and nods. “Thank you,” he whispers, viscerally grateful for her lack of questions.

By now, Grog’s set Vex down and is speaking softly to her with his hands on her shoulders. She laughs, though weakly, and pats his cheek with a bit of force as she smirks at him. The touch gradually turns gentle, a small caress that speaks to the looks of relief in both their eyes. “Well, I’ve had something of a trying evening, so I’m going to retire and sleep until my eyes disintegrate. Night, all,” she calls, from the top of the stairs, and she carefully does not address Vax or Percy with it.

Percy follows her with his eyes, even after her form disappears beyond the walls of the castle of his childhood, and he feels Cassandra’s hands squeezing his shoulders to bring him back to her. “Go follow her, dear Percy. Clearly events have transpired to make you all uneasy, and I’ve not seen Vex’ahlia act so cold to you since I’ve known her. Resolve this, and ease your ache.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, but thank you,” he says, and kisses her once on the forehead before he climbs the stairs.

The walls still haunt him with the family he no longer has, but he spares them no thought in the face of the family he found after they perished. He walks the halls of the guest wing until he finds the open door that leads to Vex’s room. “Vex’ahlia?” he asks from the doorway, leaning to peek in.

A startled sniff, and then a rumbling, low growl. “Oh, Trinket, that’s enough,” Vex says, under her breath. “It’s just Percy.” She’s sitting on the bed, and she turns to look at him with a smile as thin as paper, adjusting her clothes. “What can I help you with, dear?”

“I...” he starts, and he leans into the frame of the door, crossing his arms and staring at his boots. “I’m not sure you _can_ help me. Unless it’s to let me say... I’m so sorry.”

She waves a hand through the air, much like Tiberius would. “Think nothing of it, darling, it’s all sorted now.”

He’s spent so much time berating himself that it’s not the response he was expecting. “Nothing? Think _nothing_ of it? Vex, I--”

“Percival,” she says, her smile now sad, burdened with all the fatigue of the day. “Think. Nothing. Of it. I’m fine, you’re fine, we very nearly both weren’t, and I would just like to sleep. If we must have this conversation...” She runs hands through her hair, eyes closed. “If this conversation must happen, let it be in the morning, once we’ve all rested and recovered.”

There’s no room for argument, not that Percy would have much of a leg to stand on if he decided to. “Of course. You’re quite right, forgive my intrusion. I’ll let you sleep.”

He’s already turning when he hears her sigh. “Oh, don’t get all formal on me, you blue-blooded dick.” It’s fond, which is comforting. “We’ll talk about everything. Just... later. Also,” she says, a bit louder as he’s about to walk away, “don’t you dare go speak to my brother right now! You’ll kill each other, and we absolutely don’t need that at this bloody juncture.”

Percy smiles back at her, nods, and retreats back down the hall. His room isn’t far off. After talking to Vex, he thinks he understands some of her exhaustion.

Just as it was in the weeks before the Winter’s Crest festival, walking towards his room is a strange sensation, made stranger by pushing the door open to find Vax atop his bed, legs crossed and brow still furrowed, all these hours later. “Vax?” Percy asks, stepping in and pushing the door mostly closed behind him.

“Do you know how to braid hair, Percival?”

It seems the trait of surprising Percy with unexpected responses is familial. “Certainly, I braided a few heads as a child, but I'm afraid I've been a bit out of practice.”

Vax scoots sideways on the bed, making a beckoning motion and patting the bed behind him. He hasn't so much as glanced Percy’s way yet. It doesn't look likely to change. “You’ll do.”

The assessment is not warm, but neither is it cold. It just sits in the still air of Percy’s room like a mote of dust in the sunlight, hardly there at all, and Percy can find no reason to refuse. There’s a comb on the dresser at the far end of the room, and he grabs it to facilitate the removal of mud and muck.

Strangely, despite several years of never tying a single braid, Percy’s fingers instantly remember the process of weaving Cassandra’s hair around her head, on the rare occasion that she asked him to undo the work of whatever servant had tended to her that morning. He was never very good, but the braids always stayed, no matter what rigorous activity she put them through. Vax’s hair is easier, softer and thinner, winding around itself without trouble. It’s a process he quickly finds himself lost in.

“You nearly got my sister killed tonight, Percy.” Vax addresses the wall facing the foot of Percy’s bed.

He pauses momentarily in the work of his fingers, then continues. “And you may or may not have promised your soul to a goddess of death in order to revive her.” Percy slips a tie easily around the end of the braids he’s wound to the back of Vax’s head from his temples.

Finally Vax faces him, looks at him, and there is venom and desperation there. “I'm not talking about my life, Percy,” he hisses, “I'm talking about you endangering my sister's.”

“Perhaps that ought to be the focus of our discussion, your casual disregard for your own safety.” Vax doesn't answer when Percy lets the accusation hang in the silence between them. He leans in, and whispers intensely, “If you think I'm not tearing myself apart inside for putting her in harm’s way, you're sorely mistaken, Vax’ildan.”

Vax stands, stepping away and sneering awfully like he had at the looters over Gilmore’s destroyed shop. “Forgive me if I'm not brimming with _fucking_ confidence at your _fucking_ reassurance, Percival. You don't _exactly_ have a good track record with younger sisters, now, do you?”

If Vax was trying to wound, he’s succeeded marvellously. Still, Percy has done nothing for years but hone his poker face, so he remains as stoic in expression as he can, breathing through his nose for quiet moments to maintain his composure. “It’s late.” he says eventually. “It’s been a long day, and you are lashing out because you're scared. For your sister -- for yourself, if you're smart -- and for the fate of the world should we fail in acquiring the rest of these Vestiges. I understand, and I will do you the favour of letting you leave my quarters and find your own bed, as well as pretending you have said nothing that would upset your sister.”

“You put her in _danger_ , she was just about to _check for traps_ , and you shoved your bloody hands in there without a care in the _fucking world_ , you--”

“That is _enough_ , Vax!” Percy explodes, and he’s standing now too, shaking with something he hasn't felt since Orthax, a simmering rage that he never thought was his own. He points to the door. “Get out, find a bed, and sleep until your head is clear.”

Vax’s face softens minutely, but his features are still lined with anguish. “Percy,” he says, and his voice almost sounds pleading.

“Get out, before I do something else I’ll regret for the rest of my days,” Percy whispers, drawing the hand that was pointing up to cover his face as he feels his impassive mask crumbling into despair.

Vax leaves, and Percy is alone for the rest of the night. He hates it. He does not dream.

 

* * *

 

Breakfast the next morning is an icy affair.

Vex looks better, at least rested if not well-rested, but she sits at the corner of the table and faces away from the rest of it, feeding Trinket bits of fried meats and cooing quietly at him. Vax doesn’t look well at all, dark bags under his eyes and a listless expression on his face, his sleep likely far from rejuvenating. Percy wonders if he himself looks any better.

Pike arrives in from the temple to Erathis shortly before everyone has gathered for the meal and joins them, sitting between Grog and Vex’s turned back. It doesn’t take a genius to pick up on the tension in the air, and the gnome’s empathetic nature gives her much clearer insight. She puts her cutlery down with a small clatter. “Alright, one of you is going to tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, we was headed down to--” Grog starts, but stops when Pike’s small hand finds his enormous forearm.

“Your eagerness to inform is appreciated, my friend, however it’s not you who needs to talk about it.” Vex beside her has halted in stroking Trinket’s chin, Vax has found sudden interest in his plate which until then had gone completely ignored, and Percy...

Percy clears his throat. “I nearly killed Vex last night, in a fit of poor judgement and an appalling lack of patience.”

Vex does not look away from Trinket, but casts her eyes to the side of him, and Vax pushes away from the table to stand, still glaring at his plate.

“The tomb to the Raven Queen’s champion which held one of the Vestiges of Divergence was lair to a Beholder, which we fought and defeated. Vex had sustained damage, but joined us to open the sarcophagus and retrieve the Vestige. I reached in and activated a trap, and Vex...” Percy takes a moment to swallow, remembering her form on the ground, the utter disbelief in the immediate seconds after the blast, the conviction with which he thought ‘ _She’ll recover, she’ll get back on her feet, her chest will rise and fall again, she will live, she will survive this_...’ He looks to Vax and he’s turned to leave, but Keyleth has reached out from beside him and grabbed his arm, holding him there. “Vex passed. Her spirit left us, and were it not for Kashaw, for Zahra, for Keyleth and Vax... She would not have returned. It is my fault.”

Pike nods, no judgement in her eyes as they pass from Percy to Vax. “Very well. And you, Vax?” He freezes to hear his name, and Vex draws closer to Trinket, away from Pike. “Your sister yet lives and you are not glued to her side. She turns herself entirely away from you and you do not make protest of it. In fact, you bear it as one might a sentence passed down from on high, like a pilgrim shows devotion to their god by denying themself simple pleasures.” Pike’s words echo through the great hall. “What was your folly last night?”

For long moments, Vax is silent. No one will speak for him. Vex’s face is now buried in Trinket’s neck fur, who rumbles low and comforting to have her around him. The silence somehow echoes off the walls of Whitestone, and only the distant noise of servants elsewhere disturbs it. Keyleth whispers, pleadingly, to Vax’s back. Finally, he speaks. “My soul is forfeit to the Raven Queen. To save my sister’s life, I traded mine. She will come to collect on my debt, I know it.” His voice is watery, it wavers and shakes weakly, but every word holds conviction. “It was worth it.”

Percy startles when Vex nearly topples her chair over to stand. “Worth it?!” she cries into the hall, and now the sound truly does echo, her words reverberating through the castle. “It was worth it to _sacrifice_ yourself? Worth it to give away your life to some bullshit god you hardly believe in to bring me back?” Trinket snuffles at her hand, contrite like he’s the one who’s done something wrong, and Vex wrenches it away from him. “Are you a fucking idiot, or did you sacrifice your fucking brain along with your soul?”

Vax doesn’t turn, his words managing to carry despite not facing the table. “Anything is worth it if it means you live, Stubby.”

“No! No, you don’t get to call me Stubby right now, you arrogant fucking asshole!” Vex stalks around behind Pike’s chair, behind Grog, Scanlan, Zahra and Kima. She rounds the end of the table and grabs Vax by the foxtail of his cloak, yanking him toward her. “Why do you hate me?!”

He wasn’t looking at her until then, but when she screams the last at him, Vax looks at her wide-eyed. “Hate you?”

“Yes!” Vex says, emphatically, “Why do you hate me, brother? Because you must! You must loathe me for how you try to escape me! You must hate me so much you would do any sort of stupid fucking thing to rid yourself of me, pull any fucking idiotic stunt to put yourself in danger to leave me...” She pauses only long enough to collect the breath she’s spent yelling. “... Or you hate me enough to take the most precious thing in my _entire fucking life_ away from me! You selfish fuck!”

Although he’s at the other end of the table, Percy can see that both twins are crying. Vex’s tears stream down her face despite the ferocious mask her features cast, unheeded in the face of her anger, while Vax’s well up suddenly and fall down his face all at once. “I...” he starts, then brings up a hand to wipe ineffectually at his eyes. “I just wanted to save you, I wanted you to live--”

“Do you think any life I could have would be worth living without you in it?!”

“Vex--”

“Do you think I would want to live in a world where I don’t have my stupid brother there?” With sharp, blindingly fast movements, Vex pulls Vax down into a crushing hug, her arms wrapped around him fiercely. “You’re a fucking idiot, Vax. You’re so _fucking_ stupid.”

It takes him a moment, but eventually Vax winds his arms around her waist and pulls her closer, crying silently into her shoulder.

They stand there, holding each other and not speaking. The rest of the table, not entirely sure what to do, watch on. Grog has returned to eating, and Kash just shrugs and follows suit. Keyleth smiles and clasps her hands, and gradually normal breakfast behaviour resumes. Percy watches from the corner of his eye as Vax kisses Vex forcefully on her forehead, his hands pressed tight against the sides of her face, their eyes both closed for sake of staving off the tears that still flow freely.

Percy stands and passes Cassandra as he ascends back up the stairs. “Percy?” She asks as he nears her, reaching out to clasp her fingers to his. “I was just about to join you for breakfast, is something wrong?”

“Nothing, Cass,” he says lightly, and pulls his hand out of hers. He can feel the weight of her stare as he goes, but he pays it no mind. If he spends one more moment down there, he will choke on his guilt.

His workshop in Whitestone, when he and his family were oblivious to the tragedy that hounded them, had been a thing of intense beauty and inspiration to him, a room of infinite wonder and possibility somehow magically housed in the castle for his personal use. It seemed as if, when he sat in that room by himself, he could solve any problem that came his way. Nevermind that his problems then were unilaterally those that could be solved with iron, smelting, or a well rehearsed conversation with his father.

Now, however, it stands as a testament to how much has changed, and how much of it is irreversible. The tools and forge are meagre by the standards of his current projects, and look positively useless in comparison to his workshop at Greyskull. Across the workspaces lie traces of Doctor Ripley’s indelible influence, bits of the acid used in the distillery and piles of misshapen bullets she’d crafted for her gun. He’d come up here to lose himself in whatever ideas caught his fancy, but he balks at wondering what -- if anything -- he can do with what’s at his disposal.

It’s simple enough to begin on a few better shaped bullets for Ripley’s pea-shooter of a pistol, and he picks up her casts and begins the process of melting down the few bars of iron still lying around to fill them. It’s melodramatic, but he doesn’t bother look for a mask to cover his face, preferring the heat of the forge on his face over the heat of his shame.

It all works as a distraction, of course, until he finds his rhythm and can put his mind elsewhere. It’s why he uses tinkering to sort his thoughts, because past a certain point it’s merely excuse to do the kind of mental organizing he can’t outside of solitude.

Obviously, that’s exactly when a voice at his workshop door catches him off guard. “I’ve heard mothers tell their children that the devil finds work for idle hands, so I wonder exactly how it is that a devil found you, Percy.”

He doesn’t need to pull his glasses down on his face to know it’s Vex at the door. “It certainly is a marvel, but he managed alright.” He pulls off the heavy, insulated work gloves from his hands, brushing them off on the thick apron he’d donned. “Can I help you with something?”

“Why is it that the men in my life refuse to speak to me when it counts?” Vex pushes off from her casual lean against the frame of his workshop door, an interesting reversal of their roles from the previous night. “Talk to me, Percy.”

“Is this the point where we have that conversation?” he asks instead, looking at her head on despite how it terrifies him to.

Vex sighs. “It might as well be, since I’ve knocked some sense into my brother.”

Percy chuckles and shifts his glasses down onto his nose. “I doubt even Grog has the force necessary to knock sense into your brother.”

“Gods, I know,” she moans, and wanders in to rest against one of his work tables.

A silence hangs between them then, punctuated with the spits and crackles of the fire lit in his forge. It’s heavy, for several reasons. Percy leans against one of the other workspaces, facing Vex, his arms crossed and eyes trained on the toes of his boots. He spoke first last night, and he’s not sure he could do it again.

“It wasn’t your fault, Percy.”

“Bullshit,” he says, immediately, without venom. “I reached into the sarcophagus hastily and forgot proper procedure.”

“Yes, but it was my insatiable greed which brought me so near to the coffin itself in the first place, despite how hurt I knew I was. I put myself in--”

“Vex!” Percy cries, and he looks up at her again, feeling the desperation in his gaze. Despite how much it hurts, he looks at her. “I _killed you_ , Vex’ahlia,” he whispers forcefully, sounding hoarse with it. “I stuck my hand in that tomb and I triggered that blast and I watched as the light faded from your eyes and the breath fled your body. No amount of memory-erasing arcane magics will free me from the hellscape my mind has become because of that image. I spent five years with Orthax, and still his presence was a balm compared to this.”

He uncrosses his arms, only to press his face into his hands. “I have seen death, and I have had loved ones die. On one terrible occasion, I was even directly responsible for a loved one’s death. But never before had I felt the blood of someone I love drench my own hands.” Percy breathes in and out, heavily; in and out again, and pulls his hands away from his face to look at them. “Now I have, and I will never again forget the feeling.”

Percy’s not sure when Vex stepped towards him, but as he stares at his hands he watches her slender fingers slip onto his upturned palms. When he looks up at her, she is watching where their hands meet intently, as if reading some terribly fascinating tome. “Interesting,” she mutters.”

“What’s interesting.”

“Well, it’s just that I see no blood here. You’re talking about this blood drenching your hands, and it’s not here.”

He tries to pull his hands from hers, but finds her grip abnormally strong. “The blood isn’t literal, Vex.”

She turns his hands over, twisting them around in the flickering light of the forge. “But this blood so concerns you, and it’s not here.” Vex looks up at him then, her eyes meeting his with careful blankness. “Shall we wash them together, then? Just to be sure?”

The phrase strikes Percy, but he doesn’t have time to respond as Vex is leading him. She draws him across his workshop to the water he uses to cool his smelted metal, and she shifts her grip on his hands to press them under the surface. She releases one hand to rub gently across the skin of the other, taking care to scrub lightly over and between all his fingers, along the back of his hand, across his palm. The entire time, she’s standing directly next to him, pressed against his side, her arm nearest to him tucked under his arm nearest her. Her attentions turn to his other hand, and she repeats the process with the same care. He watches her face the entire time, and she watches her work with the same intensity.

Pulling his hands up and out of the water, Vex folds them into a towel between her grasp, drying thoroughly with scrubbing motions. She’s accomplished the whole task without once looking up at him, and he’s let it happen without ever taking his eyes off her face. The towel is carefully returned to the edge of the barrel the water sits in, and Vex finally meets Percy’s gaze again. “There,” she says with finality, as she takes his hands in hers once more. Her thumbs caress the backs of his hands, and Percy hopes to all the Gods he’s not crying right now. “Now there can’t possibly be blood on your hands, with such a good washing I’ve given them.”

She doesn’t resist when he lifts their clasped hands, steps closer, and drops his forehead to touch hers. “Washing my hands doesn’t relieve me of the guilt, Vex. I’m choked by it, every time I look at you. I wish it were that simple, but that memory is inextricably linked with your face.”

It’s surreal to watch a smile bloom across her face from this close. A terribly intimate thing to witness. “Well, then perhaps we should replace it, hm?” And before he has a chance to wonder what she means, she’s lifted up on her toes to kiss him.

Vex has kissed him before, but absolutely nothing like this. This is a lovers’ first kiss, a kiss that begins something. With careful movements, she slips her hands out of his to wrap them around the sides of his face, and he lets himself be pulled down against her. She backs herself up, pulling him with her until her back hits a workbench, and he braces his arms on either side of her to keep them both from toppling across it. Her lips pry his apart expertly, and he lets her in without issue.

In a space where they both draw breath, Percy pulls from her and returns his forehead to hers. His eyes are tightly shut as if to keep out some bright light, and he thinks that light might be shining from his chest. “Vex’ahlia,” he whispers, trying to form a thought, when she kisses him again, and he loses whatever thought he had in returning it.

“Shut up and keep kissing me,” she says against his lips, and he struggles to find whatever argument he was building.

It returns to him eventually. “As...” he starts, and he’s fiercely out of breath, but so is Vex, and it’s lovely to look at her so disheveled after something that’s not a battle. “As lovely as this is,” he says with his eyes still closed, “I feel like this is avoiding the issue, just a bit.”

Vex groans, loudly. “What do you want, Percy? I died, it was terrifying after the fact, and my brother’s forsaken to the whim of a death goddess. And you, you want to martyr yourself for me. As flattering as that is, darling, it’s not what I want from you. And it’s not what you need.”

“What do I need, then?”

“You need to forgive yourself,” she says intensely, and her thumb strokes across the peak of his cheek to punctuate it. “Because I’ve already forgiven you, Percival. I need nothing else from you, except perhaps five more minutes of what we _were_ , up until a moment ago, quite enjoying I think.”

He doesn’t realize how it hits him until it’s out of her mouth. “Could you say it again for me? Just one more time, please.”

She isn’t even confused about what he means. “I forgive you, Percy.”

Kissing her then is reverent, slow and languid, and he thinks perhaps the Raven Queen ought to relinquish her claim on the title ‘goddess’ in favour of the ranger drawing him closer with a smile against his lips. Nothing is completely fixed, but their broken edges don’t wreck anything further, and that’s the most they can hope for.

The forge crackles on, forgotten.


End file.
